GIRLS BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS: Tiverton advances to semifinals

Steve Rogers Daily News staff writer

Tuesday

Feb 20, 2018 at 12:01 AMFeb 20, 2018 at 11:30 PM

TIVERTON — The Tiverton High girls basketball team, overwhelmed on the backboards and trailing by four points at halftime, successfully turned up its defense in the second half as the top-seeded Tigers ousted Blackstone Valley Prep from the Division III playoffs with a 44-34 triumph on Tuesday night.

The Tigers extended their overall winning streak to 17 games and moved on to a semifinal game against No. 4 North Providence, a team Tiverton beat 40-33 during the regular season. The game will be played on Thursday night at 5:30 at Bay View Academy in East Providence.

On Tuesday, Tiverton, playing in front of a home crowd that drew silent when it fell behind by five points early in the second half, got the faithful back into the game when Jillian DaSilva put back an offensive rebound to tie the score.

And when Jaimi Vaillancourt’s baseline jumper swished through the net on the next Tiverton possession, the Tigers had a 33-31 edge they never relinquished. Tiverton had topped Blackstone Valley by five points in the regular season.

“We knew that we could put a great team like Tiverton up against the ropes,” Blackstone Valley Prep coach Edmund Waskowski said. “I think we’ve done that a couple times now and didn’t come away with the win. This was a tough one being that we let it slip away in the second half. My girls fought. They got a little tired at the end of the game.”

The Tigers trailed 22-18 at halftime and were behind 31-26 four minutes into the second half. But from that point on, Tiverton outscored the Pride 18-3. The Tigers held Blackstone Valley to one basket during the final 12 minutes while the Pride missed 10 shots and committed 10 turnovers.

“We were down against Central Falls and it happened to us against (Mount Hope),” Tiverton coach Jonette Lopes said. “It’s not the part about getting down that worries us. If we’re not doing our job, that worries us. And we weren’t playing defense well in the first half.”

That aspect of the game improved drastically for Tiverton over the last dozen minutes of the game. And the Tigers, badly beaten on the backboards by the taller Pride in the opening half, did a much better job in that area, too. The Pride held the overall edge on the glass 51-47.

“They have height,” Lopes said of the opposition. “We told (our girls) they needed to box out in order to get the over-the-back call. We prevented them from getting that rebound, and they started to get into foul trouble and they started to get tired.”

DaSilva had 10 of her 13 rebounds in the second half, and freshman teammate Mikayla Andrews grabbed four of her six rebounds in that same span.

“Jillian did a heck of a job,” Lopes said. “Jillian and Mikayla Andrews did a great job boxing out in the second half and that’s what we needed.”

Tiverton fell behind 4-0, but Mariah Ramos scored 11 straight points, including three 3-pointers, to give the Tigers an 11-4 edge. Ramos was held scoreless the rest of the first half, but added nine second-half points, including five in the first three minutes, to finish with a game-high 20 points in a good all-around effort for the freshman.

“I can’t even believe Mariah’s shooting and defense,” Lopes said. “She did a good job keeping the guards out of the paint. That’s what we asked her to do.”

The eighth-seeded Pride, who entered the game on a three-game winning streak, including a preliminary round victory over Toll Gate, focused on trying to stop Ramos and Aja Caldwell, who scored 10 points. They succeeded in containing them for stretches, but Vaillancourt and DaSilva came up big when the Tigers needed points.

“We wanted to take Ramos and Caldwell away from some of their shots,” Waskowski said. “Sometimes when they’re hitting shots like that, it’s tough to bounce back. They can shoot. They’re an aggressive team.”

Sports@NewportRI.com

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